Casa Neroli

We were following the same route that we have done at the end of 2011, crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe on the ferry, and then driving down through France and Spain into Portugal. The plan was to complete it over 2 days, we now knew it was almost exactly 1000 miles door to door and the more we could do on day one the better.

As planned we made 600 miles the first day to get to Bayonne, which is very close to the French / Spanish border. Again we hadn’t made any arrangements for a hotel for the night, but last time it wasn’t a problem.

This time it was very different, everywhere was full. The outside temperature we had noticed was increasing as we made our way south over day one, whilst this was pleasing; everyone likes good weather when on holiday, and we were in a lovely air conditioned car, when we got to Bayonne it was hitting 40^oc. This actually was quite uncomfortable, especially as we were tired from the journey and couldn’t find anywhere to stay for the night. Eventually we were pointed in the direction of a Quality Inn, not sure the name reflects reality, but beggars can’t be choosers, and we forked out the €79,00 for the one night.

After a visit to the local McDonalds for something quick to eat and the supermarket for a top up of snacks for the next day, we headed for bed. It was a very uncomfortable night, the bed was hard, there was no air conditioning, just a small fan, but we did get a couple of hours.  Up again at 3:00am it was at least a bit cooler and we set off again.

As we approached the border between Spain and Portugal, we once again started to try to work out how this motorway toll system was working. We thought maybe there would be something at the border. Nope, nothing there, as we drove though the first village, no nothing there either. We then approached the motorway. Where the heck was this registration thing we had read about? We turned off so as not to go on the motorway, but we couldn’t see anything. In desperation we said well lets just go on the motorway and hopefully there will be something at the first service station. We knew there was a service station not too far from last time.

We did pass under one of the charging gantries after a very short time but it wasn’t long before we got to the Service station. As we approached the motorway service station, we saw a sign “Strangers register here”, thank goodness. We pulled into the service station and there was a complete new area built, with lanes all marked out and loads of official looking people walking around directing cars.

Yes they have sorted it and I guess we were lucky as we were one of the early visitors there was lots of help. I suspect now it is left very much to the driver, but if you are driving and coming this way, it is quite easy, you just join the queue, when you get to the front a camera registers you car number plate, and you put you credit card into the machine to the side, a bit like when you exit a car park.  That then registers your card to your car, you get a receipt and that’s it your good for the next 30 days. The charges will appear over time on your credit card bill.

We knew that Jules and Andy were about a day behind us, so a quick couple of texts to let them know the protocol for the motorway tolls and our good deed for the day is done.

We arrived at our property around midday, unloaded everything from the car, and had a quick walk around to see the state of everything. Yes everything was quite overgrown; I think we are going to have a busy few days.

Finally it was time to get the car ready. The first thing was to give the car a good clean, both inside and out. Then it was time to look at that huge pile of equipment I had collated over the last few months and wonder! Yes Wonder would this all fit in the car?

Lets see what have we got, Generator, Water Pump, 100 Meters of 1” flat hose, Petrol Strimmer (oops that’s a bit long) Jerry can, and much, much more. Then there’s the picnic cool box, and wait a minute, perhaps I need room for a couple of suitcases for clothes!

I really wanted to get a wood chipper as well, but there’s no way it would fit in the car as well, is there?  With a lot a organizing, it all fitted and yes I had room for a chipper, so a quick visit to the local B & Q and it was in.

The car was loaded to the roof, but luckily all in the car, no need for a roof rack, I really didn’t want to put the roof rack on, as it would increase the fuel consumption.

In the run up to the August trip, whilst we fully intended to have some R & R time, plus get a lot of clearing down, we also wanted to organise seeing the architect, seeing the builder, I also wanted to open a Portuguese Bank account so we could transfer funds across and take full advantage of the cheapest ways of getting Euros for our British Pounds and I wanted to get a really basic cheap Portuguese mobile phone as I was convinced this would reduce our phone calls whilst in Portugal.

Maria & Paulo, yes those names again, see how helpful they are, had agreed to help us with the Bank Account, in fact we were going to open one when we were in Portugal in April, but we just ran out of time, especially as it was Easter.

I had tried to set things up in advance, but they just don’t work like that, its all done on the fly, I emailed and the replies where always the same. Just contact us when you are here and we will do it.

A visit to the Post Office a couple of days before the off to get some cash euro’s and we are done.

You may have read about the lovely people we had met during our stay in April. What happened, well we did keep in contact and they had indeed decided to progress with their purchase. It was great to think that we would have some neighbours we now knew and liked. When I say neighbours, it’s not like in the UK next door; they are about 15 minutes by car.

I was glad to be able to share our experiences to date as well with the buying process, using Maria & Paulo, the Lawyer, transferring of funds from the UK to Portugal and what happens at the Notary. Basically all the things that I had to find out as I went and hopefully if you are reading this and doing something similar then what I have written will help you.  That is one of the main drivers for me to do this blog; hopefully it will act a valuable source of information.

During June they completed on their property and apart from the vendors removing the kitchen sink during the sale, I am pleased to say everything seemed to go relatively smoothly for them as well. I wasn’t surprised about the kitchen; it is common practice in Europe outside of the UK that when you sell your house, you take the kitchen with you. I think however this came as a bit of a shock for Andy and he found himself searching for a replacement.

One really great thing was that they also were travelling back down in August at the same time as us, so we would be able to meet up and discuss our adventures over a beer or two or three or more.

Finally on the 18^th May the email came with the design. I opened as soon as I saw it was there, I couldn’t wait until Teresa and I got together. Wow! That’s different, yes you guessed it, it was nothing like we imagined. We both liked the design, although it was very different to what we thought, the more we reviewed it the more we liked it. They had included everything that we had asked for and some. It did take a few days though before we were totally convinced. I think the final acceptance was, what don’t we like, and apart from the actual position, which we could work on, there, was nothing, it did what we had asked for.

There were a couple of things we were unsure of and during the next month or so, the plan was refined a few times. The main issue as I said was the position of the house on the land. We knew we could only build on one part of the land, building restrictions etc., but the architect seemed to want to cram the house into one corner of the land. It took a few emails and some cutting and pasting of paper plans to get the architect to see our point, but finally we agreed and the position was fixed. If you do anything like this, remember the architect is working for you, your views are important; after all you are going to be using the house not the architect.

Please don’t think we argued or disagreed, because we didn’t, the architect had some really brilliant ideas and was very passionate about his design and is in the know when it comes to what is allowed and not allowed and will advise on getting the best for your budget, but again its your house, so make sure your views are heard.

As we approached our next trip in August, we had agreed the final plans, the architect worked with the builder we meet in April, Marco, to check that what they were designing could be built for our budget. The house was “L” shaped and fitted around the current building, well hut that was on the plot. Their design was to form a courtyard feel using the hut to for the 3^rd side of the courtyard, the forth side of the square would be the views off to the southeast.

We arranged to meet with architect during our visit in August; this was as much for us to gain some further reassurance. Up to this point we had only met the architect in Remax’s office and a hotel bar, we hadn’t seen their offices. As their office was in Covilhã and that’s where our hotel was this next visit, we felt it would be good to pay them a visit. Did we plan the hotel for this reason? Not on purpose, but something must have convinced us to do it, maybe psychic forces at work.

We also asked if it was possible for us to visit some of the properties that Marco the builder had done, so we could see the quality of his work. We weren’t sure whether we would use Marco for the build or not, but we needed to start somewhere and we knew that that would be the next big stage in the project.

During the remainder of April, through June into July there was a lot of back and forth on the emails with the Architect and Maria and Paulo at Remax as we double checked everything that the architect was telling us with them. Yes, you are right they could have been working together to fleece us, but you cant go through life thinking bad of everyone. In this case, as in the most, they weren’t.

The first thing we did was to agree the contract and pricing, it all seemed fair and everyone seemed to indicate it was OK. In line with everything we had read and been advised, the contract and payments were phased. We would pay an initial sum about 20% of the total at the beginning, for this the architect would produce the design and plan for the house on the land, including getting a land assessment done and submitting the plans to the council for approval. There would be two further payments one not long after the architectural approval is received and a final one when we get the certificate to build.

The architect said this would all take about 3 months.    Don’t believe it. We had read a lot about the promises and deliverables of the Portuguese so was under no misapprehension, we knew it would take substantially longer, you should allow 12 -18 months to get to stage when you get a certificate to build. Its not that they want to mislead, in fact its quite the opposite, they really want to please, so therefore do tend to over promise. As long, as you are aware and prepared for this its fine.

Whilst we had outlined to the architect the type of property we would like, we didn’t know how they would interpret our wishes. As we waited patiently for the first design we imagined all different variations. Teresa and I both did loads of different sketches, some we liked and some we didn’t.

During this period we also gave the architect the first indication of what we were prepared to spend. There was the usual drawing of breath and comments like that will be tight, you know like when you take your car to the garage. All this we where very pleased with, we liked the sighing, whilst we wanted the best, we were not going to pay any more than we have to. Our thinking was lets put a realistic but tight budget, then if we need to add we can, but better to start low, rather that higher and end up even higher and if they we sucking the air then we must be about right.

We already had the ferry crossing booked for the next trip, planned for August. That seems such a long time away. So now we needed to find somewhere to stay, we hadn’t booked anywhere till now as we wanted to see if the Hotel Príncipe da Beira was any good. It had done us well on the last trip so we tried to book again, unfortunately we couldn’t get the whole period we wanted.

After a couple of hours research the next best seemed to be the TRYP Covilhã Dona Maria Hotel, but as the names implies it was in Covilhã which was a bit further north and best guess it was about 25 minutes from our property. The price was very good and it did have a swimming pool, which would be really nice in summer. We also needed to remember that whilst we would be there primarily to work on the land, we were also on holiday so should plan for some R & R time as well. Decision made Booking.com to the rescue again the hotel was booked.

Nothing much else to organise thank goodness, that was easy. Oh! Hang on what about the motorway tolls? This time we will be in our own car, not a hire car! How is that going to work? We had taken our car last year, but of course then the charging had not started, now it had.

There’s a great online newspaper we had found during the past few months called “The Portugal News” it was very informative, even if it is very Algarve / Lisbon orientated. It had been running several articles about the motorway tolls. It seemed that the Portuguese has finally got things sorted for the international visiting motorist. They had built special areas at the first motorway service stations on each of the motorways at the borders with Spain. At these areas you could register you car with your credit card and you credit card would be automatically charged as you pass under the auto toll gantries. All sounded very sensible to me, I knew they would get it sorted, they had to really as they get a lot of Spanish visitors.

The week was over, it was time to pack up and head home. It had been an incredible week, so much had happened, good, bad and indifferent. Did I mention my back! With everything we were still very positive about the whole project and even with the hard work, we felt good.

As in January, we drove back across the N roads avoiding the Motorways and their tolls, thus avoiding all the hassle that might come with it. We both enjoyed the trip back, we didn’t stop talking all the way back to Lisbon Airport.

The remainder of the journey home was uneventful, thank god, so not much to report.

Home again – time to start organising the next trip.

We had one further meeting with the architect that week, Pedro came to the hotel to present to us his proposal, this didn’t have any real detail of the property we wanted, but was the contract of their fees and outlined what they would do for us.

It all looked good to us, but what did we know? The price seemed good, their pricing is based on the process rather that the property so was reasonably easy to understand. Like everything we do, we do not make decisions immediately, we don’t dither, but we do like time to think to discuss. If you do anything like this, I really suggest you take this approach it works. If it’s a wrong decision its wrong, at least it’s a thought out wrong decision.

We also wanted to run everything past Maria and Paulo, as I said in an earlier posting, don’t under estimate the help and guidance these sort of people can give you. You don’t have to do anything they say, but they are local and they know the local way of doing things. If you get good people they are invaluable. Thank you Paulo and Maria / Remax.

We actually met with Pedro for around two hours, enjoying coffee and discussing the area. He spoke a lot about himself and his family as well as the company, Plataforma. It is very comforting and important I think to understand the people and organisations you are working with. We ended the meeting saying we would get back to them in the next couple of weeks. Our thinking was we could run it past Paulo and Maria to check the content and pricing to make sure everything was included and the coast was reasonable.

It was Teresa’s birthday, definitely a day off from the clearing of the stream, after all we was on holiday as well, so need some leisure time. It was a good opportunity to get in the hire car and explore. There were many road signs around the area pointing out a place called Monsanto; you know the brown ones, so indicating a tourist type place.

Monsanto is about 60kms from our plot towards the Spanish boarder, which is about 100kms away. We did a little more research on the internet to discover its attractions was that housing and fortress area that is embedded into the outcrop, hill, mountain whatever you want to call it.

It is a fascinating place, as you get close you can see the outcrop rising up. You can’t get all the way up in the car, but there is a car park at the base of the outcrop, where there are the usual cafés and souvenir sellers. You can walk form here, but be warned it’s a long way up and I mean up. The better alternative is the free local buses that run very regularly up and down, but hang on!! There are plenty more opportunities to stretch your legs when you get towards the village itself.

There seemed to be two ways to the top, both involve the use of your legs, the blue route and the red route. Yep red is the harder and yep that’s the way we went, if you can do it, the views are amazing. I have added some photos below for you to see.

The weather wasn’t brilliant so I think we will visit again on a sunnier day, but you can get the idea. The day was rounded off with meal in restaurant recommended to us by the architect. Marco’s in Fundão on the road towards Covilhã. It was OK, obviously a very popular place as the restaurant was huge, a very child friendly place. The food was OK, maybe its just because we was looking for something a bit more special as it was Teresa’s birthday, but we felt very rushed and totally not in control of the meal. I think we was in seated, ordered, eaten, and bill paid and back in the car in 45 minutes.

We seemed to be back in car driving back to hotel and the evening hadn’t started. Still it was a lovely day and nice not to be up to knees in weeds and stream water.

Happy Birthday Darling.